Following recommendations based upon that enquiry, a permanent State Minimum Wage Commission was created in 1912 with power to establish wage boards (consisting of representatives of employers, employees and the general public), and to publish decrees based upon the findings of such boards after due opportunity is given for public hearings on the findings. The Commission has never had power to prosecute violators of a decree, but merely to publish the names of employers who comply or who disobey.

In Massachusetts decrees are now in force in two industries, brush making and retail stores. They are as follows:

I. Brush Industry.

(Decree August 15, 1914.)

1. The lowest time wage paid to any experienced female employee in the brush industry shall be 151⁄2 cents an hour.

2. The rate for learners, apprentices and all minors shall be 65 per cent of the minimum, and the period of apprenticeship shall not be more than one year.

3. If in any case a piece rate yields less than the minimum time rate, persons employed under such rate shall be paid not less than 151⁄2 cents an hour.

A re-investigation of the brush industry in June, 1915. completed in September, showed 3 firms (of 29 in the State) refusing to pay the rates to a total of five women.

The total number of women in 16 establishments comparable with those of 1913 had increased from 332 to 334. the minors from 36 to 51. The percentage of women who earned less than $6 a week was 61.4 in 1913 and 19.8 in 1915. The percentage earning over $9 had grown from 10.2 to 19.4, showing that wages tended to increase even above the minimum, or in other words, that the minimum does not tend to become the maximum (at 152 cents an hour the minimum for 54 hours is $8.37).

The establishment of the minimum wage in the brush industry has thus been followed by a remarkable increase in the earnings of women employed in that industry; the employment of women at ruinously low rates has been stopped; the proportion of women employed at more than the prescribed rate has more than doubled. The number of brush establishments, the total capital invested, the total value of material used, and the total value of product have all increased.

II. Retail Store Industry.

(Decree of Sept. 15, 1915, in force Jan. 1, 1916.)

1. No experienced female employee of ordinary ability shall be employed in retail stores in Massachusetts at a rate of wages less than $8.50 a week.

2. No female employee of ordinary ability shall be deemed inexperienced who has been employed in a retail store for one year or more, after reaching the age of eighteen years.

Learners and apprentices may be paid less, but none of ordinary ability, and 18 years of age, at a rate less than $7 a week, or of 17 years less than $6 a week; and none other of ordinary ability less than $5 a week.

This decree was accepted by all retail stores in Massachusetts except one corporation conducting five and ten cent stores.

A decree was to have been published Oct. 1st, 1915, in the confectionary industry. All the preliminary work had been done by the wage board and the Commission when the employers applied to the courts for an injunction to restrain the Commission from further proceedings in the matter. No farther steps have been taken by the Commission.

In the laundry industry a decree was issued July 1st, 1915, effective Sept. 1st, 1915. It has, however, been thrown into the Courts and will doubtless be held in suspense until the U. S. Supreme Court decides the pending Oregon case.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Commission has, since its creation, investigated wages in nine industries: brushes, corsets, confectionary, laundries, retail stores, paper boxes, women's clothing, hosiery and knit goods and men's clothing.

In Massachusetts the Commission is required by law to take into consideration the financial condition of the industry.

In Oregon the sole consideration is the health and welfare of women workers. The powers of the Industrial Welfare Commission are broad, relating to hours of work of women, which must not exceed ten in 24 in manufactures, but may be reduced below this limit. The validity of these powers will be determined by the U. S. Supreme Court presumably during the year 1917.

It is an open secret that the National Manufacturers' Association is behind the systematic campaign against minimum wage laws.

The campaign is so far successful that cases are pending in the Courts of Minnesota, Washington and Massachusetts

besides the famous Oregon case. This tends to hold in abeyance the movement in the States enumerated in the accompanying table.

If the Oregon case should be decided adversely, and legislation of this kind held repugnant to the U. S. Constitution, the National Consumers' League stands publicly pledged to inaugurate and carry to success a movement to change the Constitution.

FACTORY INSPECTION.

BY GEORGE M. PRICE.

The extent of legal protection given to workers is determined not by the number of factory laws upon the statute books, but by the number of laws as are properly administered and by the extent to which their provisions are actually enforced.

The first Factory Inspection Department was organized in England in 1833; in France in 1874; in Prussia in 1878; in Austria in 1883; in Switzerland in 1877; in Russia in 1882; in Belgium, Netherland and Sweden in 1889; in Portugal and Hungary in 1893; in Italy in 1906; and in Spain in 1907.

In the United States, as in Europe, factory inspection lagged behind factory legislation and years elapsed before it dawned upon legislatures that not only factory laws but provisions for their enforcement were needed. The first attempt at factory inspection was made in Massachusetts in 1886, although as early as in 1842, the local school authorities and truant officers were authorized to enforce certain provisions of the child labor law. The same year, 1886, was also marked by the enactment of a factory inspection law in New York State. In Illinois the Department of Factories and Workshops was only established in 1893; in Pennsylvania provision for inspection of factories was made only in 1899; in Wisconsin in 1883; in Maine in 1887; in New Jersey in 1883; in Rhode Island in 1894; in Indiana in 1887; in Tennessee in 1895; in Delaware in 1897; and in Missouri in 1901.

There are therefore a number of states in which as yet no provision is made for factory inspection and administration of labor laws.

There is no uniformity in the United States either as to the scope and functions of the various labor and factory inspection departments or as to their form of organization, or even to their designation. Some of them are called Bureau of Labor Statistics, others Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor, Factory Inspection Department, Department of Factory Inspection, Industrial Commission, etc.

Within the last few years there is noticeable a distinct tendency towards an important change in the powers delegated by legislatures to the departments and bureaus in charge of factory inspection and, consequently, in the forms of organization of these enforcing bodies. As long as labor legislation was limited to the several provisions prohibiting and restricting child and female labor and to making general provisions for the safety and sanitation of factories, the legislatures in each state were enabled to pass general laws

on these subjects and empower an executive officer, of whatever designation, to enforce these general laws. But when the demand arose for more specific legislation and rules and regulations as to safety and health requiring a more specialized application of the law, making distinction between one industry and another, and between various industrial plants, machinery, etc.,-it became impossible to embrace all the various requirements for the safety and protection of workers in one joint legislative enactment. It became imperative for the administrative officers largely to interpret, define and limit the application of the labor law and factory acts, to use judgment in the specific application to different industries and industrial plants, to grant appeals and exceptions, and thus, to exercise not only administrative functions, but also to assert legislative as well as judicial functions which were not intended for them to exercise.

Industrial Commissions.

Wisconsin was the first state to enact an Industrial Commission law, promulgating a general provision that industries should be made as safe as possible and reasonable, and appointing a Commission to interpret, investigate, rule and regulate, as well as to administer the safety and sanitary conditions of industries in the state. Such broad powers as became necessary could not possibly be delegated to a single executive officer and it became necessary therefore to create a commission exercising legislative and judicial as well as administrative functions.

Other states soon followed and within the last few years Industrial Commissions were created in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, Colorado and Ohio.

The creation of Industrial Commissions has also led to enlargement of the scope and functions of these commissions, and, while in most of the states, the Workmen's Compensation, for instance, is still outside of the jurisdiction of the Industrial Commission, New York State has combined the two departments and extended the jurisdiction of the Industrial Commission over Workmen's Compensation as well.

The increase of the functions of Industrial Commissions has also wrought many changes in the character of the personnel. More specialization has become necessary and more expert knowledge is at present needed for an inspector than when his functions were entirely limited to the enforcement of the few simple provisions for children and women. Hence,

we

see the appointment of medical factory inspectors, of chemical engineers, building and fire protection engineers and